Writing in his weekly column in the ever-so-slightly left-of-center Sunday Times, Jeremy Clarkson expressed his love for the 2009 Corvette ZR1 before claiming “after three days the damn thing was beginning to disintegrate.” He may have just been "doing it wrong." Of course, this being Clarkson, the rest of the column was about the Chrysler Sebring, the War of Independence and his own insecurities that arise from him being a balding, fat idiot from a backwater nation who’s made a career on the tenuous appeal of his jackassery, so we don’t know if he was talking about the overall build quality (which we found to be peerless) or the interior (which we agree is unfittingly cheap for a $103,300 car). The rest of what Clarkson had to say and more of our analysis after the jump.

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I spent most of my time in America this time in a new Corvette ZR1. It is a fabulous car. Mesmerisingly fast, good looking and amazing value. But after three days the damn thing was beginning to disintegrate. It made me growl with annoyance and despair.

The thing about the ZR1 is that it’s not just mesmerizingly fast, good-looking and an amazing value (at least here. In England it costs $200k), it’s built extremely well too. The aluminum chassis is as basic and as strong as it gets, every piece of running gear is of the highest specification available and the carbon fiber bodywork is some of the most well-laid, best-fitting we’ve ever seen. Then there’s the interior, which we think is what Clarkson is talking about. It’s cheap...really cheap. Wonky plastic buttons abound, the 3ZR package brings ugly, atrociously stitched leather in poorly chosen color combinations and the steering wheel belongs in a Cobalt, not a 205 MPH supercar. But despite all that, it should fundamentally be capable of holding itself together. We just don’t know what Clarkson is on about. Do you? [via the Sunday Times]